Flashback to mid-August, the most emotional week of my life when I anxiously packed my mom's car with all of my belongings. I carefully closed the trunk, thinking it would bust open the second we hit a pot hole or took too sharp of a turn. We began the 6-hour drive and I had no idea what I was venturing into. I texted my friends about how boring the car ride was, I posted a goodbye message to my house on social media, and I laid down in the backseat listening to the radio and singing along with my parents for the last time. I mean… not for the last last time but for the last time as a kid that actually lives at home.

Moving away from home, from my small little town, from everything I knew… it didn't scare me. I looked forward to it and I eagerly awaited the day I would start my own life since I began thinking about college in elementary school- even back then my dream schools were always out of state. Even back then, though I didn't know it at the time, I wanted to prove to myself and to the world that I could be independent.

It's funny when I think about it now because I am the most independently dependent person I've ever met. I mean, I moved over 400 miles away from everything I knew but I still call my mom whenever I get the sniffles even though I know what medicine to buy and to drink orange juice. I moved over 400 miles away and I still ask my roommate to go across the street to get food with me because I don't like waiting in line by myself. I moved over 400 miles away, but I still call my mom almost every day and talk for over an hour each time because I miss the sound of her voice. I moved over 400 miles away, but I still sleep with the stuffed animal I got when I was 2 because it smells like home. But even that is funny because I call college home. I call my dorm home, I call these new people home. But now I have to say goodbye to my freshman year, and I miss it already.

I didn't cry about moving until I went grocery shopping with my parents for my dorm, and I didn't stop crying until at least three days after that. I knew I could do it, but nonetheless I was terrified of failing. I was so scared that I was going to disappoint my mom, or any of my family really. I had worked so hard for so long to get here, but I didn't know what came after that. I made it, I got into college, I moved in… but now what?

Well

Now, I have some of the best people I ever could have imagined in my life. The friends I have made in the last nine months have truly changed my life. I have the best memories with these people; from football games to study parties with pizza at 3 am, from church to horror movie marathons, and from holiday celebrations with crafts in my room to going on last minute adventures to places we've never been. They have seen me cry, they've seen me laugh so hard I couldn't breathe, they've seen me have breakdowns through stress, but most importantly they've seen the real me. I've changed a lot through the last two semesters, we all have. But they've stuck with me-they've loved me for my quirks and for my insecurities, for my ten-minute laughing fits and for my makeup obsession, for my shady comebacks and for my annoyingly optimistic view on everything. They're my home.

Now, I know what I want to do. Yes, I've made some questionable decisions and mistakes in my first year here, but I've never lost sight of who I am and who I want to be. I'm still working some things out, but I am reminded every single day why I am here. I can honestly say that even while I sit in my classes I genuinely love being here, and I am falling more and more in love with my major every single day. I still have three years left and I can't wait to see what they bring, but so far I'm in love. I'm in love with life, I'm in love with my school, I'm in love with my future.

Now, I walk around this campus that seemed so huge at first, and I am still in shock that I am here. I see the groups of high schoolers on tours around campus and I smile, remembering what it was like when I toured here with my dad. I think about how this school, full of over 30,000 students, can somehow feel like such a close-knit family and how it really has become my home.

Now, with less than two weeks left in my freshman year, I'm just as emotional as I was in my first week. I'm excited to go home and see my family, and I'm stoked to see what the next few years will bring, but I don't want to leave. I don't want to wake up in the morning and not see my roommate or not be able to take walks around this gorgeous campus. I don't want to finish packing all of these boxes and squish them back into the car. I don't want to wait three whole months to be back at Willy-B screaming with the rest of my gamecocks.

I never expected my first year to go the way it has, and I never expected it to fly by this fast, despite what everyone told me.

Now, in two weeks when I move out and make that 6 hour drive back to my first home, texting friends, posting goodbye messages to my dorm, and singing along to the radio, I think I will actually cry. Not only because I'm sad about leaving, but because now...I know. I know now that I am capable but that I do still need my mom. I know now that I have to say goodbye to my friends here but that I won't lose them. I know now that I will be okay, and my future will be brighter than I ever could have imagined. I know that I have a home and a family to come back to in three months and I know that because of that, there's nothing to be scared of.

Goodbye freshman year, I miss you already.